Monday, August 15, 2005

Mao

ADDED: Anyone who reads this and still thinks that Mao - or the wider Stalinist, state capitalist project - represents anything progressive or romantic or heroic or emancipatory… is basically insane.

The harder argument to make - because it’s a subtler argument - is to see that Mao’s evil does not refute Marxism. As Perry Link says, “Mao and his followers never tolerated serious Marxists.” Mao may have professed Marxism, but that does not make him a Marxist. Mao’s true philosophy, it is clear from this review, was his own personal power, and Marxism was simply his alibi for that.